1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an implantable battery-operated electrostimulation device, referred to in the following as an implant, having a telemetry unit for wireless data transmission from the implant to an external device and possibly vice versa.
2. Description of the Related Art
Implants of this type allow telemetric remote monitoring of the implant by transmitting data from the implant via a service center to an attending physician, for example. The data may be physiological data, which the implant has recorded on the body of a patient, or technical data, which relates to the operation and control of the implant. Typical implants of this type are cardiac pacemakers or cardioverters/defibrillators.
In known implants, telemetric data transmission is triggered either manually (i.e., the patient must activate the query of the implant with subsequent data remote transmission) or automatically.
In battery-powered implants, the problem exists in principle that all functions of the implant are powered via a battery, which may run out. Therefore, the treatment functions of the implant, i.e., delivering stimulation pulses or defibrillation shocks, for example, are already tailored in such a way that they require as little energy as possible, without omitting a needed treatment. The mean current consumption of the implant is thus strongly a function of the need of the patient for treatment.
The telemetry functions of the implant also take the limited battery capacity into consideration.
Known manual systems do not trigger data transmission themselves, i.e., even when a specific operating state of the implant or an automatically recognized pathological state of the patient makes the intervention of a physician or technician obvious. Rather, the patient is to have the possibility, in case of feeling unwell, of informing a physician or service center by manually triggering a data transmission himself, in order to receive medical attention if necessary. If the patient has triggered the data transmission, data relating to the operating state of the implant, such as battery exhaustion or a recognized device error, is also transmitted telemetrically to the physician.
Known automatic systems automatically transmit the physiological data to the physician after detecting a pathological state, for example. The implant turns itself off upon reaching battery exhaustion or in the event of a recognized device error in the course of a cyclic self-test.